A\N: Hello everyone! I see that some of you are enjoying my "Unopened Letters To The World" fic. While I am working on that, I decided to work on my rather rusty writing skills and start writing a full blown fic rather than one with short chapters. A very special thanks to Reasons Lost For being a wonderful beta reader, helping me improve as a writer! Also, there are parts from my previous scrapped stories in here!

DISCLAIMER - I do not own Tomb Raider or any of it's characters. Though, I DID give the therapist a name. Just sayin'.

THE SESSIONS

CHAPTER ONE - The Trick Is To Keep Breathing

Pull yourself together Lara.

I told myself as I sat there, waiting for the therapist to see me after filling out grueling amounts of what I thought was unnecessary paperwork. I suppose that they need to know all of this rubbish. I had always thought that therapy was pointless. That only completely barmy people went to see a therapist. I never thought that In my twenty two years that I would be one of those people, laying on a couch, talking to a complete stranger about my problems while they sit there, quietly judging me whilst taking notes. I walked up to the front desk of Doctor Steven Faulkner's office, an older blond woman was his receptionist. She greeted me warmly while handing me a stack of paperwork about an inch thick. I never minded doing paperwork, but this was something different. The client intake form on the last page made me feel rather uncomfortable as I read the multitude of questions regarding my well-being and symptoms that I may have been experiencing.

"Please look these items over and circle the number from 1-10 that best describes how these symptoms have bothered you recently:"

Guilty feelings. 10. So much had happened. I couldn't even begin to describe how I felt about everything that had transpired. From being shipwrecked on that godforsaken Island to losing Roth, to losing everyone else. God, if only I wasn't so stupid. There's not a day that goes by where I don't blame myself for what happened. There were storms coming in from the Dragon's Triangle and still I insisted on sailing there. None of this wouldn't have happened if it wasn't for me. It haunts me to this day.

Suicidal thoughts, plans or attempts. 8.

Have you ever thought about, planned or attempted suicide? If so describe.

I'll never forget it. Roth had just died. No one knew. I sat there in the cold, the rain came down so hard it felt like a million tiny bullets piercing my skin. The man that I had called my father for the past twelve years had sacrificed himself in order to save my life. I had been responsible for so many deaths already. Steph, Grimm, and finally Roth.

"Is this really worth it?" I wondered.

"What's the point? I'm just going to fucking die here anyway…"

I reached for one of the twin pistols that Roth had given to me before he slipped away. I brought it up so that the barrel was pressed tightly against my temple. I bit my bottom lip tightly and pulled the trigger, waiting for the sound.

Click…..click.

I had grabbed the wrong gun. The magazine had been completely empty. Distraught, I threw the gun down to the ground. I couldn't even get killing myself right. I buried my head in my hands as the sound of thunder drowned out my screams. I held onto Roth's body until Jonah, Alex, Reyes and Sam found me only a few moments later.

Flashbacks and intrusive memories. 9. Everywhere that I went post-Yamatai, every time that I had heard a loud crash, the explosion of fireworks, if I saw someone following a little too closely, I was brought back to the island. I often carried one of the guns that Roth gave me tucked into my pants underneath my shirt. There had been multiple incidents where I had reached for it. One in particular. Sam and I had been on a walk late at night, she told me that walking and getting outside of my own head for awhile would help me. This night we were walking past a dark alley-way, it had to have been close to midnight. Out of the corner of my eye I thought that I had seen something or someone coming for Sam and I. Panicked, I reached back and pulled out the Remington pistol, safety off. Everything went black shortly after. I heard Sam calling out to me, as I came back to, she stood in front of the barrel, quickly breaking my grip on the gun. I don't think that I had ever seen her so terrified. The gave me a look that I had never seen from her before in my life. She looked at me as if I was some sort of monster. It broke my heart.

God, Sam.

I felt my heart start to pound, my stomach start to turn as I closed my eyes as her face entered my mind. I had never been the type to believe in love, or maybe I just simply never had the time for it, but Sam brought out these feelings in me that I didn't think I could ever feel for anything or anyone in my life. I loved her so madly. If there was any one person that I was doing this for, it was for her. I felt an unbearable amount of guilt over what I put her through these past few months. Despite my best efforts, Himiko still found her way to a vessel. And that vessel happened to be my girlfriend. Now she's locked away in a mental ward and there's not a damn thing that I can do about it. But I'd like to think that If there's one thing that I can do for her, it's this. Losing her was the push that I needed to get help, that and my dad's old girlfriend, Ana begging and pleading.

Sexual worries or problems. 7. Sam had made comments about our sex-life shortly after Yamatai. I needed an outlet to vent out my anger, and my pain. Whenever we were intimate, I turned my mind completely off.

"It's like you're trying to fuck the pain away, sweetie." My eyes started to water at the memory of her voice. "I'm loving how rough you are, but this isn't you."

She was right. Sex was the only thing that made me feel completely vulnerable. I wanted so desperately to feel loved by her. I thought that if we had sex, she would love me more, that the pain would all go away because I had love in my life. I was dead wrong. I never meant to hurt Sam, she was the one person in my life that I couldn't bear to hurt, yet I did anyway.

Change in sleeping pattern. Nightmares. Difficulty falling asleep. Difficulty staying asleep. 10. Sleep came seldom for me. And whenever it did, it came from the aid of six, sometimes seven over-the-counter sleep aids washed down with an enormous quantity of alcohol. Though I never stayed asleep for very long. My sleeping mind became tenanted with nightmares. Poor Sam would be awoken in the middle of the night by my screams. God she deserved better.

The office was large, and almost picturesque. A large window with a cherry desk placed in front of it came between me and the identical flax colored Wingback chair across from me, letting natural light shine through from the outside world, giving the room some extra light. This was something that I had never done before. This was something that I had never planned on doing in my entire life. Slouched in in my chair, I closed my eyes once more and pulled the hood of the heather grey zip up sweatshirt I had been wearing over my head. I let out a sigh and tried my absolute hardest to relax, to not think about the painful memories that paraded around in my head. It wasn't long until I heard the door open. Walking into the room was the man who introduced himself as Doctor Steven Faulkner. He had the look of a man who had seen a lot in his sixty-some years. He had silver hair, just barely enough to cover his entire head, wearing thick rimmed glasses over his cold blue eyes, framing his worn, chiseled face. He attempted to make some small talk with me as he sat down in his chair across from the identical one that I had been sitting in. I gave small, short replies as I sat back in my chair, folding my arms. My eyes, fixated on the dark rug lying just below me, tracing the small patterns. My focus was brought back to the doctor as I heard the click of a button He was recording me.

"Okay, let's begin. It's Thursday, the 25th of July, and I am here with Miss Lara Croft. How are you this afternoon, Miss Croft?" He glanced right at me, a small smile on his face.

I was uncomfortable. This whole thing made me uncomfortable. It would have been different if it were Ana or Jonah sitting in that chair across from me. After losing the love of my life, they were all that I had now. The only people I felt that I could be myself around. I felt my body tense up, my grip tightened on the arm of chair I had been sitting in.

"Fine. Thank You."

I avoided eye contact with him. He had to have known that I was lying. I glanced up at him momentarily as he sighed and leaned back into his chair.

"Miss Croft, there's a bit of a joke about the word 'fine' in psychiatry, that it often stands for: 'Feelings Inside Not Expressed'." I internally rolled my eyes, therapy wasn't for most people. Perhaps it wasn't for me.

"Mmm. I thought jokes were supposed to be funny." I droned, I couldn't have possibly understood how that was a joke. I watched him cross one leg over the other as he pulled a pen from his pocket.

"It's possible I oversold its value as a joke. However, If we're going to get anything out of our time together, you need to be honest."

My mind drifted to the words that Ana said to me. I remember her begging me. I was on a sort of a downward spiral after I had lost Sam. I had almost forgotten that she had keys to the flat Sam and I had owned one night where I had stumbled in, completely pissed up. Only to find Ana, the only real mother figure that I've ever had on my life, waiting for me.

"Your father, and Conrad would both be physically ill if they knew you were suffering like this Lara. Please...get help. Before it's too late."

His words snapped me out of the brief memory.

"Now, can you honestly tell me that you feel... 'fine?'" He asked.

I wasn't fine. I had been far from it. The feelings of sadness were haunting me. A ghost that wouldn't move on, a ghost that I couldn't exorcise. Doctor Faulkner knew that I had been lying. Maybe talking about it will help. This is what he does for a living. If I was going to be spending an hour and a half with this man once a week, I may as well be honest with him.

"No...Not for a while." His eyes squinted as he looked over the paperwork that I had filled out prior.

"Your father's partner, Ana said on the phone that she feels you have been struggling and showing signs of post-traumatic stress." He studied me. "Is that something that you would agree with?"

"Yes..." I averted my eyes away from Doctor Faulkner and back to the rug beneath my feet. "I am sure that you have seen in the papers, and the news that I was shipwrecked on an island, Yamatai in Japan." I felt a lump form in my throat, a bitter taste coating my tongue as the name Yamatai escaped my lips.

"Uh-huh...have you ever had any previous counseling before, Miss Croft?" he asked, his pen in his hands hovering over his notepad. I shook my head

"No, I have not."

Doctor Faulkner briefly scribbled in his notepad. "Now, this may be difficult for you, but what were some of the events that happened over in Japan that may have contributed to your visit?"

I thought of Roth.

"I...watched the man who was my father for the last twelve years of my life get killed right in front of my eyes.." I admitted. "There's not a day that goes by that I don't relive that moment in my head." The doctor made some more notes.

"This man was not your father?" He inquired. I felt myself start to choke on the air I was breathing as the memory played over in my head once more. Conrad Roth put himself in between me and an axe in order to save my life, before quickly shooting the remaining Solarii while their leader, Matthias fled as he and I collapsed to the ground. I then thought back to last memory of my father.

"Dad, is everything alright?"

I walked into his office to find him facing down at his desk. "He must have fallen asleep" I thought. I took a few steps closer, wishing to wake him. As I stepped closer, a smell that reminded me of the old change jar I had in my bedroom became almost pungent.

"Dad…?"

I stopped dead in my tracks. My whole body started to shake, the temperature of the room started to decline as my head began to spin. My eyes caught the smoking gun clutched in his lifeless hand as the source of the smell became apparent. A large puddle of blood laid underneath his head, dripping from the desk onto the floor. The slanderous news article deeming him a disgrace collecting the drops. I was too horrified to react to Ana entering the room behind me, gasping and screaming.

"No." I came back to reality. "My father died when I was ten...he committed suicide." I paused in an attempt to regain some composure "I was the one who found him." My hands violently trembling. I closed my eyes and tried to focus on slowing my breathing.

"Just breathe, Lara. You're doing well." He spoke softly. "Was it just the two of you?"

"My mother died when I was four years old. She died in a plane crash on her way to meet my father. It was just me and him until I was nine, then he met Ana. Then she became my maternal figure. After his death, his oldest friend Conrad Roth became my legal guardian. He didn't want Ana to feel obligated to have that responsibility. 'She didn't know how to deal with the little spitfire' He put it." I tried to let out a small laugh as I watched Doctor Faulkner, nodding as he wrote more.

"Do you remember much about your mother?"

"Her name was Amelia, like my middle name...Dad never really spoke of her. When he did, he told me that she loved me, utterly. That the three of us were happy.. He buried himself in his work shortly after her death. Throughout my entire time with him, there was never a time where he wasn't doing something pertaining to his studies. I feel as though I reminded him of her too much. Roth always told me I was the spitting image of her. I saw a picture of her only once, and she was beautiful. I worry that it was my fault, her death. Everything after too." Doctor Faulkner listened as he flipped through paperwork and continued to assess me. "My father became so obsessed with his work. We were fighting just hours before he died."

"They say that there are five most stressful events a person can go through in their lifetime: Death, divorce, moving, job loss and illness. All of us strive to have orderly and peaceful lives. We tend to develop well when we get into certain routines. Humans thrive on routine. When those routines get broken, we behave differently. We may lash out at our loved ones, or pull away completely. It's not uncommon to feel guilty for the things that have happened in your childhood leading up to now, Lara. It is quite common for people to focus on their work after a tragic event, like you mentioned your father did after your mother's death…" His hand lifted as he brought the back end of his pen up to the corner of his mouth.

"Tell me more about your father, Richard Croft. He was quite the controversial archaeologist in his day." His eyes met mine briefly. "He was all over the papers."

"He was always stubborn." My gaze shifted to the window. Contrary to popular belief, London wasn't always rainy. It was that day. I began to lose myself as I watched the small droplets of water race each other to the finish line that was the bottom edge of the rather large window. Before Yamatai, the rain always called me down. The gentle pitter-patter on the streets of London served as a white noise for me in my youth. Now, the rain and storms were just another reminder. I could no longer hear the loud rumbling of thunder or heavy rain without her mind going back there. My attention was brought back to the doctor as he spoke.

"From what you said earlier, you didn't seem to spend much time with him either, did you?"

"No. I spent most of those eight years away in boarding schools while he was away on expeditions. When I was on holiday, I would often join him and Roth on them. Roth was always the one who stayed back to keep an eye on me, to keep me entertained. Being away from my father for so long taught me independence. It wasn't until I was nine where I finally felt like I had a 'normal' family. Ana was my father's saving grace in his final year. She pulled him back to reality. For a while there, I felt like I had my dad back, until he became obsessed once more. I want to understand. People are starting to tell me that I'm just like him and I'm not sure how that makes me feel... " I slouched forward resting my elbows on my knees, placing a hand over my closed fist, and brought my mouth to them, furrowing my brow.

"After Yamatai, I would lock myself in my room, books surrounding me. I'd be lost in them for hours...days, trying to make sense of what I saw there. My girlfriend, Samantha would sit at the door and beg me to come out and eat something or spend time with her. It was a cause of concern for her. We would get into fights and she would always accuse me of being just like him."

Doctor Faulkner kept listening.

"Lara, have you ever heard of the term 'transference'? When was the first time you truly gained the approval of your father? The first time you ever felt a sense of accomplishment?"

"No, I have not...I was five. My dad and Roth were about six meters away from me while I was digging in the dirt. In these ghastly penguin pajamas." I laughed as I brought my hand up to touch my jade necklace. "This is what I found. I remember I was so excited, I ran up to Roth and he smiled, untied his boot, removed the lace, put the jade on it and tied it around my neck so that I wouldn't lose it. My dad then called me his little archaeologist. I think that's when I decided what I wanted to be. I used to think that if I found things on his digs, if I studied hard, and got good grades, that maybe he'd notice me. I think that's all a child wants, to be seen and heard." I answered him.

"Transference is the redirection of feelings and desires, and especially of those unconsciously retained from childhood toward a new object. We all do this all the time. In your case, as a child, you received positive reinforcement from your father when you did well academically, or made a discovery. Because of this, you wish to feel that praise and adoration once again from important people in your life. Your girlfriend Sam for example. Especially now, since your father is gone. I'd like for you to talk to me about Conrad Roth, the man who stepped into your father's position after his passing."

I thought back to some of my happiest memories with Roth. Graduating University was at the top of the list. I don't think I had ever seen him so happy before. The smile on his face was contagious as he ran up to me, giving me a tight hug, Sam following behind me, trying to maneuver around the countless parents and relatives in attendance. He pulled back and put his hand on my shoulder to steady me. His green eyes started to twinkle and water with joy as he spoke.

"I'm so proud of you, girl." I could see Sam next to me out of the corner of my eye, her cellular in hand as always. Roth shot her a warm glance as he put an arm around her shoulder, pulling her close as well. "Both of you girls."

Sam giggled as she greeted Roth. "You're looking good Roth! I bet you're beating the ladies back with a stick!" I saw his face change colour as he laughed at her comment. He returned to face me, smiling.

"Your mum and dad are looking down on you, Lara. They would be proud of you as well." His eyes squinted as he looked around the crowd. "Speaking of mothers, where is Ana?" Sam approached me, fixing her hair. Her eyes not leaving her phone.

"Okay, my hair looks awesome today, so are we going to get a picture together or what?" She grinned, knowing exactly how opposed I was to having my picture taken.

"I don't know…" I teased as she let out an exasperated sigh.

"Please!?" I could see Roth standing behind her. His arms crossed with one hand up to his mouth, obviously chuckling at the two of us. He took a small step towards Sam and offered to take it.

"This is a day you're going to want to remember, lass." Sam squealed while she gave him her phone and stood to my left. I felt her wrap her arm around the middle of my torso, and she tickled my side in an attempt to get me to smile. I put my arm around her shoulder as she continued, eventually getting a smile out of me as Roth took our photograph.

"He was the father that I truly needed. He taught me everything that I know today. Some of the happiest moments in my life were with him. He loved me unconditionally. He knew that I wasn't his responsibility after my Dad died, but he stepped forward anyway. He made a lot of sacrifices in his life to make sure that I lived a good one, including his own. I'll never forget the night that he died. It's still fresh in my mind and I think that it always will be, for as long as I live. But if it weren't for him, the few of us left wouldn't have gotten off of that Island." I shook my head in hopes that the memory would dissipate. I had hoped that he had been through asking the hard questions, then I heard her name.

"Talk to me about Samantha."